hooked ↣ joshler ✓

13. Invitation

Looking up at his ceiling, Tyler took a drag of his joint shakily.

He wasn't doing very good today. He kept thinking.

His music was on full blast, that and the pain of the earbuds digging in gave him a slight headache, but he was okay with that. Whatever took his mind off of it.

Suddenly, there was soft knocking at his door. He instantly sat up and stubbed out the joint on his nightstand. His family knew about the cigarettes, but weed– not weed. "Come in," he said distantly taking both of his earbuds out.

The door slowly opened and Madison popped her face in. He sighed in relief, she wouldn't have known the difference between the two drugs anyway. "Hey, Ty?"

"Hm?"

"Josh's on the phone."

"Josh?" Tyler began to get out of bed as Madison handed him their home phone.

"Yeah, he said Pete gave him our home number, but he doesn't know yours so..." she trailed off. "It's really smokey in here. You should crack a window if you're gonna light a cigarette," she scrunched her nose up in disgust. Tyler thanked her for bringing the phone and shooed her out of the room, closing his door behind him.

"Hello?" He said into the phone.

"Hey, Ty," Josh said nervously. 'Ty', that made his heart skip a beat when Josh said it. "Are you busy today?"

"No, why?" He asked, resting the phone in between his ear and shoulder. Tyler walked back over to his nightstand and picked up the joint, examining it.

"Well, it's my little brother's birthday and I'm trying to throw him a birthday party," Josh paused. "He wants to invite your sister."

"Okay. I can probably run her over to your house. What time?"

"Two," there was silence for a minute before Josh spoke up again, his voice slightly crackling through the line. "Ty?"

Skip. "Yeah?" Tyler responded, dropping the joint and walking over to his jacket to pull out his box of cigarettes.

"I was wondering," another pause. "If you wanted to come and stay for it too? Patrick said you seem cool and the more the merrier and-"

Tyler chuckled into the phone, now in a better mood. "Sure, Josh. We'll be there."

---

Madison was clutching onto her gift as her and Tyler stood on Josh's front porch.

"Do you think he'll like my present?" Madison asked as her older brother pressed the doorbell, hearing a muffled version of it from inside the house.

"Probably," Tyler shrugged. The door swung open and Patrick stood there, Pete behind him.

"Hi!" Patrick said enthusiastically.

"Happy Birthday!" Madison squealed, thrusting the present into her friend's hand.

"Thanks!" Patrick giggled. "Joshie! Tyler's here!"

A second later, Josh walked over to the door. "Hey," he gave a sheepish smile. "Come in," as Tyler walked in, he looked around and saw a cozy living room. Around the room were pictures of Josh, but he wasn't alone. There was a little kid in every picture grinning next to Josh from ages preschool up to around what Tyler guessed was middle school. The face looked familiar, but Tyler couldn't quite place who it belonged to.

As if on cue, his question was answered when another person walked in.

"Tyler, you know Dallon, right?"

He looked at the taller boy who despite a smile, had confusion in his eyes. "Yeah..." Tyler said, nodding. "He's in our English class, right?"

"Mhm," Dallon paused and faced his best friend. "Josh? Can you help me check on the cake?"

"Oh. Sure!" Josh began to walk into the kitchen, but stopped. "I'll be right back, Ty," Skip. "You can have Madison set her present on the coffee table," and with that, he disappeared through the swinging door.

Tyler turned around and saw his sister, Pete, and Patrick all sitting on the floor and they were setting up a board game, Candy Land to be exact. The present was already on the coffee table sitting next to two others. Memories of Tyler's and his siblings past birthdays flooded his mind, remembering the heaps of presents they would receive each year.

Shaking the thoughts from his head, Tyler quietly crept over to the door and put his ear against it, listening. What could he say? He was nosy sometimes.

"You and Tyler are friends?" He heard Dallon say before the noise of an oven closing sounded. "You know he's trouble. I'm pretty sure he's high half of the time in class. I feel bad for you if you have to work on a history project," he laughed.

"Um, not really. I mean about the friend thing. We're not really friends," Josh replied quietly. A small twinge of pain shot through Tyler's chest.

"Then why is he here?"

"He has to keep an eye on his sister. She's friends with Patrick."

"Oh," Dallon said simply. "Well, I would say about 15 more minutes on the cake. The pizza should be here any minute. Let's go out there, they're all probably wondering what's taking so long."

Tyler quickly jumped back from the door as not to look suspicious and walked over to the fireplace, examining the pictures of his "history partner" and Dallon. He saw a frame sitting upside down and confusedly, he picked it up. It was a picture of Dallon holding up a ribbon. No sign of Josh anywhere. Tyler noticed a couple other frames flipped over and checked them too, all pictures of Dallon. He would've thought they were just really good best friends, except he last picture was of Dallon and an older women, presumably his grandmother. Huh, he thought. Weird.

The door swung open and Josh walked through with Dallon trailing behind him. Tyler quickly went over to the shoe rack by the door and began putting one of his Vans on. Josh obviously didn't want him there.

"Wait, where are you going?" Josh asked, frowning.

"I should go, Madison seems fine here," he explained bitterly.

"No!" Everyone turned to look at Patrick, who had just shouted. "Tyler, please don't go."

The mentioned sighed. "Why not?"

"The more the merrier?" Patrick gave a sad smile. Tyler couldn't help but return it, except a bit happier.

"Sure," he gave in, taking his almost tied shoe back off. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Josh smile.

"Thanks, Ty," despite being mad, Tyler couldn't help that skip that ran through his heart.

"No problem, I'm just here to keep an eye on my sister," he replied, walking off and sitting on the couch by the kids.